


willa

by orphan_account



Category: FlashForward
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 06:33:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4128385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During her tenth week of pregnancy, the dreams start. Written pre-finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	willa

During her tenth week of pregnancy, the dreams start.

 

It begins the way she imagines every expectant mothers’ nightmares start. She is in labour and on some level of consciousness, apparently aware that there should be pain; so there is pain, sweat and tears. Her daughter screams as she is born, furious at being dragged into this world against her will, and settled firmly in Janis’s arms as the nurse beams at her.

 

Janis stares at the child in her arms, ten perfect fingers and ten perfect toes, bright blue eyes staring up at her. She has wanted this child for _so_ long. A friend died while trying to prove her right to exist. She even slept with a man to create this child, and that’s a sacrifice Janis thought she’d never have to make.

 

She looks at her daughter, small and perfect and oh-so-innocent in her arms, and feels nothing.

 

***

 

Exactly seven weeks later, Janis walks into her OB/GYN’s office; turns around and walks straight back out again.

 

Sixty seconds later, she re-enters the room, hand settled on the holster on her hip, and half-smiles an apology at her doctor who looks ready to flee the room herself. This is the moment. A promise that _soon, this will be over_. Soon, the future will be blissfully unknown and unknowable, as it should be.

 

“Congratulations,” her OB/GYN gushes, moving the wand across Janis’s belly. It’s a word without meaning for her, repeated hourly, a pasted-on smile. She plays the part that her patients need her to play, but this appointment is different. This appointment is scripted in advance, and she knows her role. She barely glances at the monitor, already knowing what’s she’s going to see there; does a double-take. Her smile freezes in place.

 

“What is it?” Janis asks in alarm, sitting up. “What’s wrong?”

 

Her doctor takes a deep breath, sets the wand down, and grips Janis’s hand comfortingly.

 

“What _is_ it?” she demands again, insistently.

 

“Congratulations,” the OB/GYN tells her. “It’s a boy.”

 

***

 

So this wasn’t fate, after all.

 

It wasn’t scripted by God, an intervention to give her the daughter she foresaw, against all the odds.

 

Janis wonders whether she ever wanted a child in the first place.


End file.
